Tag Archives: jewish

Midrash

Nationality: Jewish-American
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/9/2014
Primary Language: English
Language: Hebrew

INFO:
When Moses got the Torah tablets (Ten Commandments) from God, at the top of Mt. Sinai, he stood on the top of Mt. Sinai and spoke the Ten Commandments to the children of Israel/Jewish people, who were all standing at the base of the mountain. Like you do, he said certain words and everyone at the bottom heard something different from each other, which is also what happens in conversation — you don’t hear exactly what someone says, because you have to interpret everything you hear.

BACKGROUND:
A midrash is a story that was originally told by rabbis in order to fill in character story/background outside of the canonical text of the Torah. Over time, these stories would become passed down and written down in their own right, and though they are considered canonical now, they were originally told from the speculation of rabbis rather than the word of God, and are always told with that distinction.

The informant first learned this midrash around elementary school, from her father, and finds the story personally important to her because it gives her, as a Jewish person, the permission to interpret the text to be what she wants/needs it to be, and for that to be allowed. If someone else gets something else from a text than she does, then they can both be good interpretations without having to fight for authenticity.

CONTEXT:
I spoke to my informant during an on-campus event.

ANALYSIS:
I think it’s really interesting that a canonical religious text actually gave a lot of leeway to individual interpretations, and that those interpretations then got folded back into the general religious understanding.

I think the meaning that my informant gathered from the midrash is also beautiful, and uniquely suited to her kind of sensibilities. I’m not that familiar with the Old Testament, or with Jewish traditions at all, so to hear someone speak about her religious practice in a way I, someone who isn’t religious, could understand helped me gain a new perspective on both her religion and her.

Kabbalat shabbat rituals

Nationality: Jewish-American
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/9/2014
Primary Language: English
Language: Hebrew

INFO:
After the Sabbath starts, is that part of any eating ritual is that before you eat, you wash your hands in a ritual way just with water and say a prayer. Between saying the prayer and eating a piece of bread, you can’t talk. When you have a family or guests over, it takes a moment for everybody to go through the ritual before blessing the bread and partaking in it together.

In the few minutes that it takes for people to come back and sit back down at the table, no one can talk, but everyone will hum songs. These tunes are just known from growing up together, and sometimes it’s just the head of the house humming it and sometimes other people will join in, but it makes the space very happy. There’s no reason for it other than just to make the space beautiful.

BACKGROUND:
Literally means “the welcome of shabbat (Sabbath).” Practically, all the blessings and songs and rituals that you do to welcome the Sabbath in on Friday night, though there are rituals, such as the one listed above, that you can do on the Sabbath itself.

The idea behind it: making things beautiful to welcome in the Sabbath — you’re not just celebrating, but you’re doing it even though you don’t need to. Generally, it means being unnecessarily fancy for the Sabbath, e.g. cleaning the house, wearing fancy clothes, getting out nice dishes.

The informant has a memory of her grandfather always humming when her family would come over on Friday nights, or when he came over on Friday nights. He’s a huge part of her life, and one of her greatest inspirations.

CONTEXT:
I spoke to my informant during an on-campus event.

ANALYSIS:
During my undergrad years at USC, I sometimes went over to my Jewish friend’s house to partake in their shabbat dinners. I never knew there were religious rituals attached to it, but this one really captivates me because of its inherent quietness. When many people think of rituals or festivals, they think of noise and excitement, but this is one ritual that’s incredibly low-key in practice, but still shows a strong devotion to and respect of the religious rite.

The Legend of How a Family Came To America

Nationality: American (ethnicity: Jewish)
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, California
Performance Date: 4/29/2013
Primary Language: English
Language: Hebrew

Item:

“My great grandfather, or so the legend goes, was an apprentice in a barbershop in the Ottoman empire in this town of Gaziantep, and um one day um the chief barber was out um and so my great grandfather was just sweeping up, just engaging in sort of barberly, apprentice activities, and some official of the sultan came in for a shave, and my great grandfather really wasn’t prepared to engage in the art of shaving with a straight razor because it’s quite arduous, um, you need to be trained to do it or else it can be quite ugly, um but seeing it was an opportunity to win favor, you know, with the sultan, and it’s interesting to note that although Jews were not the majority religion they still favored the rule of the sultan, who had invited the Spanish-Jewish refugees to come live in the ottoman empire and treated them quite well, they favored him to the secular young Turks who for Jews to serve in the army, and the Jews who were an observant people and had their religious beliefs and observed dietary laws and what not didn’t want to eat food that wouldn’t have been kosher and to not observe their holidays and secularize, they wanted to have their own educational system and what not, so they were more on the side of the sultan than they were on the side of the secularizers. So as a result I think he saw this probably as a way to win some of the favor of the sultan, give him a good shave or whatever, so he, the apprentice goes and gives this guy a shave, um… you know what happens next (claps hands)…you know like blood dripping down from a terrible botched shave and this guy, this official in the ottoman government, like, like threatens to like kill him, like run him out of the country. So what the next thing that happens, according to family legend, is that he runs away…to America, and that’s how we got here.”

Context:

This is a story that the informant, a 19-year-old USC student born and raised in Los Angeles, has been told “many times over” by his family. He is not sure about the “actual, factual element of it,” though he claims it “has been passed off as something that actually happened.” He says that it “has been told so many times” that it has become a part of his family’s legacy. “It can’t be true,” he says, “or could it?”

Analysis:

That the informant says that the story “can’t be true” and then immediately returns with “or could it?” coupled with its real-life setting indicates that it is a legend. That said, that the story has been passed down and told so frequently points to its important position within the informant’s family history. Whether or not it is true is irrelevant; what matters is that a prominent event in a family’s history, its moving to America after being rooted in the same place for hundreds of years, is remembered as an extraordinary event.

 

 

Tattoos are defiling your body

Nationality: American
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: March 9, 2013
Primary Language: English

“So what’s common in Jewish culture is that you’re not allowed to get tattoos, because should you get a tattoo, you’re defiling your body, and you can’t be buried in a Jewish cemetery. My grandfather had this idea that all his children would be buried with him in a Jewish cemetery. And then my father got a tattoo and I got a tattoo, and my grandpa actually ended up getting a tattoo because he got heart surgery, and now he jokes about it and talks about how he can’t be buried in a Jewish cemetery.”

 

My informant comes from a culturally Jewish household, but neither she nor her father practices the religion. The ban on tattoos can be found in Leviticus, but many modern-day Jews choose to ignore it, even though it means that they can’t be buried in consecrated ground. I was surprised that her grandfather, who she describes as religious, was willing to break the taboo in order to get a tattoo. It is an interesting dichotomy between what people see as an inarguable point of their faith and the way they actually behave.

(This belief comes from Leviticus: “You shall not make gashes in your flesh for the dead, or incise any marks on yourselves: I am the Lord” (Leviticus 19:28))

Kahuna

Nationality: American
Age: 24
Occupation: Assistant Media Planner
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 4/22/13
Primary Language: English
Language: N/A

A Jewish summer sleep-away camp in Malibu, CA by the name of Camp Hess Kramer holds hundreds of Jewish kids ranging from eight to seventeen for most of the summer.  The camp, being near the beach, has a beach day once a week where the entire camp goes to Zuma beach to enjoy the day.  The camp typically leaves after eating breakfast in the main dining hall, but there is an essential step the campers must go through before ensuring they will have a great, sun-filled, fun day at the beach.  They must call out to Kahuna — the symbolic guarantor of a great day at the beach.

The counselors at the camp typically create a skit to detail the kids the necessity of getting Kahuna to show up at dining hall and talk to the kids.  In order for Kahuna to come to the dining hall all of the kids must yell out “Kahuuunnnnnnaaaaa” at the top of their lungs in order for him to hear their calls.  Typically after three or four loud calls out to Kahuna he shows up to the dining hall.  Kahuna is dressed in beach attire with red swim trunks, visible sun block on his nose, sunglasses, and shirtless with a big red “K” on his chest.

After Kahuna’s arrival he begins to explain his role for the kids.  Kahuna details all of the necessary things campers must do to ensure they have a great time at the beach — essentials such as putting on sunscreen, drinking a lot of water, and of course reapplying more sunscreen.  Kahuna also organizes the campers in the dining hall into four different groups and gets them to chant individually in four parts — “Beach, Sand, Sun, Fun.”  The campers must chant this multiple times loudly in order to ensure a sunny, fun day at the beach.  After the chanting it fulfilled to Kahuna’s expectations he is free to dismiss the campers and he leaves as all the campers board the buses.

Kahuna has been a figure of Camp Hess Kramer beach days for over a decade and will continue to represent beach days for the camp in future years.

I think Kahuna serves a strong role at Camp Hess Kramer because he encourages campers to make sure that they have a safe, fun time at the beach.  Kahuna’s emphasis on wearing sunscreen and drinking a lot of water is obviously a result of the counselors and staff members wanting children to remain hydrated and avoid sun burns.  Also Kahuna’s emphasis on having a fun, good time at the beach is a result of counselors and staff members wanted the campers to get in a good mindset for the day and for the campers to have fun at the beach.  It is also interesting to note that the word “kahuna” means in Hawaiian wise man or shaman.  This relates to Kahuna as a figure at Camp Hess Kramer as a wise man of the beach.